Franco Ruffini (1939, Italy), a founding member of ISTA, has written extensively on theatre anthropology. He is Professor Emeritus of the University of Roma Tre. He taught physics and mathematics before devoting himself to theatre history focussing, among other things, on Stanislavski, Artaud, Decroux and Grotowski. His numerous books deal mainly with the reformers of the 20th century theatre. His latest publication is Grotowski e Gurdjieff (Editoriale Scientifica, 2019). His book Theatre and Boxing. The Actor Who Flies is available in English (Icarus-Routledge, 2014). Founding member of the journal Teatro e Storia (1986).
In this essay, Franco Ruffini introduces and applies the notion of the savannah for theoretical and practical research within theatre anthropology, offering a wide spectrum of methodological and essential tools for inquiry. Among others, the elements discussed by Ruffini concern reality and levels of analysis, the relation with Asian cultures, energy of the actor and pre-expression, presence, second nature, adaptation, score. This article by Ruffini was originally published in Bouffonneries (15-16, L’énergie de l’acteur. Anthropologie Théâtrale 2, 1987, 33-52).